PLOS ONE
RESEARCH ARTICLE
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Citation: Nur –A Yazdani DM, Abir T, Qing Y,
Ahmad J, Al Mamun A, Zainol NR, et al. (2022)
Social media addiction and emotions during the
disaster recovery period—The moderating role of
post-COVID timing. PLoS ONE 17(10): e0274898.
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274898
Editor: Barbara Guidi, University of Pisa, ITALY
Received: February 5, 2022
Accepted: August 31, 2022
Published: October 20, 2022
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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274898
Copyright: © 2022 Nur –A Yazdani et al. This is an
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Funding: The authors received no specific funding
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PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274898 October 20, 2022
Social media addiction and emotions during
the disaster recovery period—The
moderating role of post-COVID timing
Dewan Muhammad Nur –A Yazdani ID1*, Tanvir Abir ID2, Yang Qing ID3, Jamee Ahmad ID4,
Abdullah Al Mamun5, Noor Raihani Zainol6, Kaniz Kakon ID7, Kingsley Emwinyore Agho8,9,
Shasha Wang ID10
1 MONASH Pathway at Universal College Bangladesh, Dhaka, Bangladesh, 2 Department of Business
Administration, Faculty of Business & Entrepreneurship (FBE), Daffodil International University, Dhaka,
Bangladesh, 3 UCSI Graduate Business School, UCSI University, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 4 College of
Business Administration—CBA, International University of Business, Agriculture and Technology—IUBAT,
Dhaka, Bangladesh, 5 UKM-Graduate School of Business, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Bangi, Selangor
Darul Ehsan, Malaysia, 6 Faculty of Entrepreneurship and Business, Universiti Malaysia Kelantan, Kota
Bharu, Malaysia, 7 Department of Philosophy, College of Arts and Sciences—CAAS, International University
of Business Agriculture and Technology—IUBAT, Dhaka, Bangladesh, 8 School of Health Sciences, Western
Sydney University, Campbelltown, New South Wales, Australia, 9 African Vision Research Institute,
Discipline of Optometry, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, South Africa, 10 Marketing and Public
Relations at the QUT Business School, Queensland University of Technology, Queensland, Australia
* dewan.yazdani@ucbbd.org, dewanyazdani@gmail.com
Abstract
Background
Social media addiction, a recently emerged term in medical science, has attracted the atten-
tion of researchers because of its significant physical and psychological effects on its users.
The issue has attracted more attention during the COVID era because negative emotions
(e.g., anxiety and fear) generated from the COVID pandemic may have increased social
media addiction. Therefore, the present study investigates the role of negative emotions
and social media addiction (SMA) on health problems during and after the COVID
lockdown.
Methods
A survey was conducted with 2926 participants aged between 25 and 45 years from all eight
divisions of Bangladesh. The data collection period was between 2nd September– 13th Octo-
ber, 2020. Partial Least Square Structural Equation Modelling (PLS-SEM) was conducted
for data analysis by controlling the respondents’ working time, leisure time, gender, educa-
tion, and age.
Results
Our study showed that social media addiction and time spent on social media impact health.
Interestingly, while anxiety about COVID increased social media addition, fear about COIVD
reduced social media addition. Among all considered factors, long working hours
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PLOS ONE Social media addiction and emotions—The moderating role of post-COVID timing

Competing interests: The authors have declared contributed most to people’s health issues, and its impact on social media addiction and
that no competing interests exist. hours was much higher than negative emotions. Furthermore, females were less addicted
to social media and faced less health challenges than males.

Conclusion
The impacts of negative emotions generated by the COVID disaster on social media addic-
tion and health issues should be reconsidered. Government and employers control people’s
working time, and stress should be a priority to solve people’s social media addiction-related
issues.

Introduction
Social media, being a fundamental part of people’s lives, leaves an immense impact on every
aspect. Scrolling and checking social media has become almost a daily routine of over half of
the world’s population’s daily activities. According to statistics, in the last five years, the num-
ber of social media users has almost doubled, increasing from 2.2 billion in 2015 to 4.5 billion
in 2022 [1]. This number of users is increasing at an incredible rate. In addition, according to
data, there will be 52.58 million internet subscribers in Bangladesh in January 2022. At the
beginning of 2022, Bangladesh’s number of internet users was 31.5% population. According to
Kepios, internet subscribers in Bangladesh rose by 5.5 million (+11.6%) between 2021 and
2022. At the beginning of 2022, 29.7% of Bangladesh’s overall inhabitants used social media.
Furthermore, according to data revealed in Meta’s advertising materials, Facebook had 44.70
million subscribers in Bangladesh in January 2022. According to Google’s commercial tech-
niques, YouTube had 34.50 million subscribers in Bangladesh as of early 2022. As a result, it is
pretty much evident that the usage of internet in Bangladesh is increasing on a regular basis
[2]. The number is rising because social media is the only web-based platform where people
with similar backgrounds, interests, activities, and connections can be linked [3]. Besides, the
financial ability of people to buy social media (Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, WhatsApp, Insta-
gram etc.) accessible devices such as smartphones and laptops has increased, resulting in the
increasing number of social media users [4]. As social media creates ample opportunities for
people to correspond virtually, temporal and partial boundaries notwithstanding [5] and pro-
motes communication and sharing of images and videos amongst social network users, indi-
viduals of all ages around the world are taking this advantage [6].
Moreover, the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic caused by Novel Corona Virus significantly
influences every individual’s lifestyle [7, 8]. Various governments are adopting policies such as
lockdown, quarantine etc., to curb the spread of the virus by keeping people indoors [9].
Working from home and virtual education practices have forced people to spend a long time
on social media in order to fulfil their needs for work- and disaster-related information, enter-
tainment, and interpersonal communication [10]. Despite the fact that social media plays an
undeniably beneficial role in sustaining contact and relationships among individuals, its
increased usage is sufficient to result in addiction [11]. A past study has revealed that social
media addiction depends on the daily time devoted to the social media platform, and more fre-
quent daily visits increase addiction to social media profiles [12]. Another study found an
important association between high school students’ daily average internet usage time and
social media addiction [13]. However, while social media usage may not always be harmful,
some people get addicted and use it extremely or obsessively [14]. Experts have observed the
harmful effects of long-term addiction and extreme and obsessive social media usage and

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PLOS ONE Social media addiction and emotions—The moderating role of post-COVID timing

showed that such a level of social media addiction might result in psychological, physiological
and productivity issues [15].
There is evidence that obsessive social media usage can impact users’ psychological, cogni-
tive, perceptual, and physiological wellbeing. Addicted social media users may have with-
drawal feelings, relational issues and others as well [16]. Recent research has found that many
people have become addicted to social media due to the COVID-19 epidemic [11], creating
several physical health issues such as headaches, sleeping disorders, stomach ailments, and
exhaustion [17, 18]. It has been found that using different online platforms, especially social
media and shopping websites–whether for essential items or shopping items has increased a
lot during COVID-19. This change in the excessive use of digital media has brought numerous
physical disorders [19] and left adverse effects on the usual physical activities among the gen-
eral population [20]. It has been established that despite social media being an essential and
integral part of people’s lives for day-to-day work and communication, the impact caused by
its extensive use on health cannot be ignored [21].
Social media addiction may create significant emotional problems as well. Fear resulting
from much information on social media regarding the coronavirus disease and the ’lockdown’
situation caused high levels of uncertainty. It raised the level of stress, anxiety, and depression
(sometimes leading to suicides) among people worldwide [22–24].
Social media usage hours are strongly correlated with creating social media addiction, and
social media addiction causes several physical and psychological issues. Past studies from Ban-
gladesh have assessed the effect of social media and smartphone use vis-à- COVID-19 (the
virus). For instance, a study by Islam and colleagues [25] investigated complicated smartphone
use, and complex social media use among College and University students in Bangladesh dur-
ing the COVID-19 pandemic. Findings of that study indicated that problematic social media
use was linked to poor psychological wellbeing (such as anxiety and depression) and other fac-
tors (particularly landowner age, and poor sleep) during the pandemic, which further suggested
the demand for interventions included virtual awareness programmes among College and Uni-
versity students. The present study mainly focused on social media users’ health and psycholog-
ical problems among workers across all the nine districts of Bangladesh after the COVID-19
restriction period imposed by the government of Bangladesh. This study will inform future sim-
ilar studies and the establishment of new policies seeking to find out how Bangladeshi workers
might be affected by social media use during the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, the study’s
results could assist efforts to disseminate behavioural health information on social media.
Reviewing the relevant literature established that social media addiction brings physical and
psychological changes. Consequently, the present research focused on psychological and phys-
ical issues related to social media addiction. Based on the background of the study above, the
following research hypotheses were propounded.

Conceptual framework
According to the background and objectives of the study and based on the research hypothe-
sises, the researchers have identified the variables of the present study and showed their
hypothesised relationship in Fig 1.

Hypotheses
Based on the research purposes, conceptual framework and the discussion above, the current
study established the following research hypotheses:
Hypothesis 1 (H1): Anxiety is correlated with social media addiction.

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PLOS ONE Social media addiction and emotions—The moderating role of post-COVID timing

Fig 1. Conceptual framework for the model (based on Brunborg and Burdzovic, 2019 [26]; Coyne et al., 2020 [27]).
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0274898.g001

The COVID-19 pandemic is an epidemiologic and health crisis since it causes extensive
psychological issues such as stress, anxiety, depression, trauma, panic, insomnia, death distress,
anger, psychosis, boredom, and suicide [28–32].
Hypothesis 2 (H2): Fear is correlated with social media addiction.
However, the pandemic has underscored the downside of social media by showing that
uncontrolled use propagates panic, fear, and misinformation about COVID-19 among mass
populations [33–35]. There has been a great fear of contracting the virus among many people
worldwide bee of the worldwide rise in the death toll due to the virus [36]. Excessive social
media use has been identified as one of the major reasons behind this rise in fear. Social media
platforms have become home to atrocious and sometimes erroneous information associated
with the virus [9]. Social media users spread rumours, conspiracy theories, and even inaccurate
calculations of COVID-19 cases and deaths, propagating fear among the masses [33–35].
Hypothesis 3 (H3): Social media addiction is correlated with social media usage hours.
According to a past study [12], social media addiction has risen significantly, as has the
amount spent online on a routine basis. The obsession is exacerbated by the more frequent
daily visits to social media accounts.
Hypothesis 4 (H4): Social media addiction is correlated with physical health issues.
Past research has revealed that uncontrollable usage of social media affects physical and
mental health, such as cardio-metabolic health, sleep, affect, self-esteem, wellbeing and func-
tioning, particularly in adolescents [37].
Hypothesis 5 (H5): Social media usage hours are correlated with physical health issues.
It is evident, and this is inspired by research that ’internet addiction’ is principally linked to
increased social media or gaming activities [38].

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PLOS ONE Social media addiction and emotions—The moderating role of post-COVID timing

Hypothesis 6 (H6): Time plays a moderating role in the proposed relationships. Specifically,
a) the relationship between anxiety and social media addiction will be more substantial
over time; b) the relationship between fear and social media addiction will be more substan-
tial over time; c) the relationship between social media addiction and social media usage
hours will be more robust over time and d) the relationship between social media addiction
and physical issues will be more potent over time, after the disaster.

Method
Participants
This study embraced a sequential cross-sectional design. Data were collected for six weeks
from 2nd September– 13Th of October, 2020. This period was chosen because of the sad change
in people’s lifestyle of being isolated from the outside world due to the pandemic and obtaining
most of their necessities using a virtual medium. Furthermore, during this period, the situation
was getting normal, participants resumed their work physically, and offices opened after the
COVID-19 lockdown. Consequently, a new normal life was being experienced, and partici-
pants with technology, the internet, and social media became indispensable. This cross-sec-
tional survey was conducted in all 8 divisions of the country in which, 2926 out of 3,500
yielding a response rate of about 84%.

Measures
A self-administered online survey was conducted using social media, in which 2926 out of
3,500 respondents correctly completed questionnaires. Anxiety and fear were determined by
answering ‘yes’ to the question “What kind of psychological problem do you feel for extensive
use of the Internet” while Physical issues were those answered relating to neck pain, headaches,
and numbness to the question “What kind of physical problem have you experienced from the
extensive use of the Internet since COVID-19 lockdown?”. Social media addiction was those that
to the questions "Do you feel to urge use social media more and more?", "Do you become restless
or feel troubled if unable to use social media?", "Do you spend a lot of time thinking about social
media or planning to use social media?" and "Do you use social media so much that it could
cause a negative impact on your job or studies?" and social media hours was determined by the
responded to the question,”How many hours do you spend daily on using social media?”.
The data were collected over six weeks, starting from week 1 (2nd-8th September); followed
by week 2 (9th-15th September), week 3 (16th-22nd September), week 4 (23rd-29th September),
week 5 (30th-6th October) and week 6 (7th -13th October) in that order. Variables considered in
the data collection included: gender, age, education level, work time and leisure time. A struc-
tured questionnaire was used for that purpose. Each variable in the questionnaire was coded;
for instance, for gender, the male was coded "1", the female was coded "2", and the other was
coded "88". For the level of education, Under SSC, SSC or equivalent, HSC or equivalent,
Graduate, Postgraduate, Doctorate, Post Doctorate and Other were coded “1”, “2”, “3”, “4”,
“5”, “6” and “7, respectively.

Ethics
The Institutional Review Board of the International University of Business, Agriculture and
Technology (IUBAT), Dhaka, Bangladesh, granted permission for this study (IUBAT/AR/
2021/002). The study followed the principles of the Helsinki Declaration, as updated in Forta-
leza. Before completing the questionnaire, all participants were informed about the study’s

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PLOS ONE Social media addiction and emotions—The moderating role of post-COVID timing

specific goal. Data collected from the field was treated with high confidentiality, and prior to
data collection, the participants were informed of the confidentiality of the information they
provide. Verbal and written consent was obtained from all the participants, and the partici-
pants’ confidentiality and privacy were maintained.
Respondents were permitted to complete the survey only once to avert repeated responses
and to ensure that the data were valid to some extent. This was because data were limited to
their IP addresses and device. Respondents had the option of terminating the survey at any
time they desired. Furthermore, we ensured that the data were anonymous and confidential.

Statistical analysis
Smart PLS 3 was used to analyse this study through a Partial Least Square Structural Equation
Modelling (PLS-SEM) approach. There are several reasons for choosing this approach. These
include its ability to deal with complex multivariate models and variables with different scales,
explore theories, and test multiple mediators simultaneously [30]. We used the SmartPLS to
have the individual parameters and the significance level [39]. In this study, the first step was
to create groups according to the categorical variables of interest, including age, gender, educa-
tion, working time and leisure time and this was followed by data analysis of the measurement
reliability, validity for the latent reflective construct and social media addiction were examined
by several indicators as suggested by Malak and colleagues [40]. Next, the second stage
involved assessing the structural model correlations and hypotheses testing with significance
levels. Model estimation was conducted with r2, Q2 and effect size describes the path effect
from exogenous construct to endogenous construct [41]. Next, the path coefficients of the
groups were analysed to determine if they were significantly diverse from each other based on
the guidelines proposed by Henseler et al. [42]. To enable figures using latent constructs, a
mean score of the four measurement items of social media addiction was created. Graphical
representations using SPSS statistical software was used in order to further understand the
interaction effects and the changes of the endogenous variables over time, and this was carried
out by creating a mean score of the four measurement items of social media addiction and the
variable were classified into five values, which are: 0, 0.25, 0.5, 0.75. 1.

Results
Two thousand nine hundred and twenty-six Bangladeshi respondents participated in this
study, and the breakdown of their characteristics are shown in Table 1 where 60.7% respon-
dents were male and 39.3% were female. Table 2 presents the hypothesis testing, path

Table 1. Characteristics of study participants (n = 2926).

Variable Mean ± SD (min-max), or n (%)
Age 33.2±6.7 (18, 65)
Education 4.2±0.8 (1, 7)
Work Time 2.7±1.2 (1, 8)
Leisure Time 3.8±1.8 (1, 9)
Time in weeks 3.3±1.7 (1, 6)
Gender (n = 2920)
Male 1776 (60.7)
Female 1150 (39.3)

N = 2926, otherwise in parentheses; min = minimum; max = maximum.

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Table 2. Hypothesis testing, path coefficients and their 95% Confidence Intervals (CIs).
Hypothesis Relationship Path coefficient (β) t-value Lower limit upper limit P-value
H1 Anxiety -> Social Media Addiction 0.19 6.83 0.15 0.24 <0.001
H2 Fear -> Social Media Addiction - 0.12 7.00 -0.14 -0.09 <0.001
H3 Social Media Addiction -> Social Media Hours 0.22 7.03 0.16 0.27 <0.001
H4 Social Media Addiction -> Physical issues 0.44 20.37 0.41 0.48 <0.001
H5 Social Media Hours -> Physical issues 0.07 3.23 0.03 0.10 0.001
Control Variables Age -> Physical issues 0.01 0.83 -0.01 0.04 0.203
Age -> Social Media Addiction 0.03 1.61 -0.01 0.06 0.053
Age -> Social Media Hours -0.04 1.85 -0.08 -0.01 0.032
Edu -> Physical issues -0.05 3.24 -0.08 -0.03 0.001
Edu -> Social Media Addiction -0.06 3.07 -0.09 -0.03 0.001
Edu -> Social Media Hours 0.14 6.06 0.10 0.17 <0.001
Gender -> Physical issues -0.03 2.63 -0.05 -0.01 0.004
Gender -> Social Media Addiction -0.03 2.26 -0.05 -0.01 0.012
Gender -> Social Media Hours -0.02 1.49 -0.04 0.00 0.068
Leisure Time -> Physical issues -0.21 7.91 -0.26 -0.17 <0.001
Leisure Time -> Social Media Addiction -0.08 2.56 -0.13 -0.03 0.005
Leisure Time -> Social Media Hours -0.38 13.90 -0.42 -0.33 <0.001
Work time -> Physical issues 0.56 15.75 0.51 0.62 <0.001
Work time -> Social Media Addiction 0.66 15.48 0.59 0.73 <0.001
Work time -> Social Media Hours 0.76 20.10 0.70 0.82 <0.001
Model Statistics R2 Q2
Physical issues 0.75 0.57
Social Media addiction 0.60 0.36
Social Media hours 0.57 0.57

R2 (R-Squared/Coefficient of determination) and Q2 (The predictive relevance),

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coefficients and their corresponding 95% Confidence Intervals (CIs), and the result suggests
that the proposed model is well suited for confirming and explaining the positive effect of anxi-
ety on social media addiction, as suggested in H1. Fear was negatively associated with social
media addiction (β = -0.12, t = 7.00, p<0.001). H3 showed that social media addiction has a
positive and significant effect on social media hours (β = 0.22, t = 7.03, p<0.001), similarly, a
H4 showed a significant positive effect of social media addiction on physical issues (β = 0.44,
t = 20.37, p<0.001). H5 revealed social media hours were significantly and positively related to
physical issues (β = 0.07, t = 3.23, p<0.001), and all hypothesis reported in Table 2 was sup-
ported except H2.
The path coefficient for the five hypotheses differs statistically except for the effect of gender
on social media hours and age on physical issues and social media addiction (see Table 2 for
details). In this study, the value of R2 on physical issues was substantially (75%), social media
addiction was substantially (60%), and social media hours were higher than moderate (57%)
because, in PLS-SEM, the R2 value of 0.60 would be considered as substantial, 0.33 could be
classified as mode. In contrast, 0.19 could be considered as weak [43]. The values of Q2 pre-
sented in Table 2 were higher than zero, which implies that this model has predictive relevance
[43].
Table 3 presents hypothesis testing and path coefficient for time interactions. To test the
moderating role of time after the Covid lockdown, the variable time (in weeks) was added to
the model. Again, the model had good predictive accuracy (R2>50%), and predictive relevance

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Table 3. Hypothesis testing, path coefficients and their 95% Confidence Intervals (CIs) for time interaction.
Hypothesis Relationship Path coefficient (β) t-value Lower limit upper limit P-value
H6a Time � Anxiety- -> Social Media Addiction 0.06 3.84 0.03 0.08 <0.001
H6b Time � Fear- -> Social Media Addiction 0.01 0.35 -0.02 0.03 0.362
H6c Time � Social Media Addiction- ->Social Media Hours 0.04 2.50 0.01 0.07 0.007
H6d Time � Social Media Addiction- -> Physical Issues -0.02 2.09 -0.04 -0.01 0.020
Model Statistics R2 Q2
Physical issues 0.75 0.57
Social Media addiction 0.61 0.36
Social Media hours 0.58 0.57

R2 (R-Squared/Coefficient of determination) and Q2 (The predictive relevance),

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(Q2>0) (see Table 3 for details), and hypothesis 6a revealed that the interaction term of time
and anxiety has a positive effect on social media addiction (β = 0.06, p<0.001). Hypothesis 6c
showed that the interaction term of time and social media addiction was significantly related
positively related to social media hours (β = 0.04, p<0.01), and the result in hypothesis 6d sug-
gests that the proposed model is well suited for confirming and explaining the positive effect of
the interaction term of time and social media addiction on physical issues and all hypothesis
reported in Table 3 was supported except hypothesis 6b. We found a positive association
between anxiety, social media addiction and social media hours and the physical issue was
stronger over time (see Fig 2a, 2c and 2d: Moderation Effects), and fear and social media addi-
tion so were not statistically significant, and time did not influence the relationship (see Fig 2b:
Moderation Effects).
As shown in the Fig 3a (Time� Anxiety ! Social Media Addiction), participants who
reported anxiety always had higher levels of social media addiction. Considering the fluctua-
tion across the six weeks, the social media addiction of participants who had anxiety increased
over time, and the social media addiction of participants who did not have anxiety decreased
over time (mean = 0.77, SD = 0.32). The social media addiction level tends to be the same
between the beginning and the end of the six weeks (see Fig 3b: Time� Fear !Social Media
Addiction). Social media addiction was split into low (< = 0.75), which accounted for 38%,
and high (= 1), which accounted for 62%. High social media addiction always had higher social
media hours (Fig 3c: Time� Social Media Addiction ! Social Media Hours) and physical
issues (Fig 3d: Time� Social Media Addiction ! Physical Issues) across the weeks, which con-
firms the result of H4.
Table 4 presents the Heterotrait-Monotrait Ratio (HTMT) results, and Table 3 indicates no
discriminant validity problems according to the HTMT0.85 criterion, indicating that there are
no overlapping items from the respondents and the instrument used in this study has no prob-
lem in establishing the discriminant validity. The Cronbach’s Alpha and Composite Reliability
were 0.78 and 0.86, respectively. These were both greater than the cut-off points of 0.6, con-
firming the reliability of the measurements. To achieve convergent validity, factor loadings
should be greater than 0.7 [44]. The factor loadings of the four items relating to social media
addiction were, "Do you spend a lot of time thinking about social media or planning to use social
media?" "Do you feel urges to use social media more and more?" "Do you become restless or feel
troubled if unable to use social media?" and "Do you use social media so much that it could cause
a negative impact on your job or studies?" were 0.83, 0.81, 0.73 and 0.72, respectively. The Aver-
age Variance Extracted (AVE) of the latent construct of social media addiction was 0.60, which
was greater than the cut-off point of 0.50. Therefore, convergent validity was achieved. The

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Fig 2. (a-d): Moderation effects.

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heterotrait-monotrait ratio of correlations (HTMT) values ranged from 0.01 to 0.84 across all
single-indicator constructs in discriminant validity (see Table 2 for details). The reflective
latent construct was lower than the cut-off point of 0.9 [45]. To examine the common method
bias, Variance Inflation Factor (VIF) should be lower than 3.3 [46], and all VIFs ranged from
1.0 to 1.36.
To assess the formative construct, weights of the indicators should be significant without
collinearity problems [47]. The indicators were all significant (p<0.05) without collinearity
issues (VIF<3.3): back pain (weight = 0.40, t = 15.65, p<0.001, VIF = 2.36), numbness
(weight = 0.45, t = 18.20, p<0.001, VIF = 1.90), and headaches (weight = 0.28, t = 10.69,
p<0.001, VIF = 2.18).

Discussion
As addiction is defined as an irrepressible urge that is often accompanied by loss of control,
internet addiction leads people to create problems from their uncontrollable abuse of Internet
usage, which is related to other pathologies like depression, loneliness and social anxiety [48].
This current study aimed to examine how social media addiction and negative emotions influ-
ence health issues after the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown among Bangladeshi workers.

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Fig 3. Interaction effects and the changes of the endogenous variables over time.
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PLOS ONE Social media addiction and emotions—The moderating role of post-COVID timing

Table 4. Heterotrait-Monotrait Ratio (HTMT).

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
1. Age -
2. Anxiety 0.02 -
3. Edu 0.40 0.24 -
4. Fear 0.01 0.16 0.01 -
5. Gender 0.22 0.19 0.20 0.08 -
6. Leisure Time 0.01 0.31 0.21 0.02 0.15 -
7. Social Media Addiction 0.06 0.68 0.20 0.34 0.25 0.53 -
8. Social Media Hours 0.06 0.67 0.29 0.24 0.21 0.32 0.72 -
9. Work time 0.04 0.63 0.28 0.22 0.24 0.74 0.84 0.68 -
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Our study found that the anxiety level of the participants increased over the period of six
weeks with the increase in social media addiction, which is in consonance with a past study
from Turkey [49], which revealed that University students’ social anxiety and happiness signif-
icantly forecast their addiction to social media. It is also consistent with several other previous
studies [50–52]. This finding may be attributed to the fact that people who have communica-
tion difficulties in social environments and opt to create this kind of social interaction by the
use of internet tools portray characteristics of social anxiety [53]. This is further buttressed by
a past study [49] which found that happiness significantly forecasts university students’ prob-
lematic internet use. They espoused that people who are content in their social environment
and worry less about being evaluated in this environment normally do not seek different
online communication tools—consequently, the possibility of their being addicted to social
media declines.
A study in Bangladesh [54] aimed to assess the prevalence of anxiety among Bangladeshi
individuals during the COVID-19 pandemic, vis-a-vis social media exposure (SME) and elec-
tronic media exposure (EME), backed the findings of the present study. Another past study
revealed that perceived feelings of loneliness predicted both excessive social media use and anxi-
ety, with excessive social media use also increasing anxiety levels [21]. In recent times, the use of
social media has been highly lauded to receive health and safety information and ensure that
social contacts are maintained to deal with the isolation of the pandemic [55]. Possibly due to
the distressing situation, experts have suggested social media used to be a transient means of
recovery from distress and as a coping strategy. This needs to be conscientiously managed to
deal with loneliness and negative emotions [56]. Consequently, social media and virtual com-
munities enable users to interact with other individuals, strengthen relationships, publicise con-
tent, portion out common interests, experiences, and emotions (e.g., [57]), and also enhance
their engagement in digital platforms [58]. Nonetheless, there is the risk of social media involve-
ment becoming excessive or dysfunctional by activating a behaviour–reward feedback loop [59]
which strengthens negative moods and supports a vicious use of social media.
Surprisingly, the present study found a negative association between fear and social media
addiction. The study showed that social media addiction decreases users’ fear level, and fear
level decreases with longer social media hours over the period of six weeks. This might be con-
sidered as the benefits of information exchange and peer support. Social media users can
receive psychological support and advice from the people who are connected with them,
which may help reduce their fear level. Thus, social interaction through social media, might
positively affect the belief, ideas, and thoughts regarding the COVID-19 pandemic, social
media use, which can aid build bridging, bonding, and maintained social capital [60].

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PLOS ONE Social media addiction and emotions—The moderating role of post-COVID timing

As the strongest factor, “working hours” is positively correlated with social media hours,
social media addiction, and physical problems. The significance of this finding is that working
professionals who are involved in social media usage during working hours are likely to be pre-
occupied with sustaining a sustained link with social media to make sure that they take part in
all rewarding experiences being shared on these platforms. Eventually, such people exhibit
decreased work efficiency (both decisional and action) and a reduction in work performance.
Accordingly, our finding could be explained through the tenets of the limited capacity model
[61], because of the fact that internet usage may burden the capacity of an individual to process
information. Because of this burdened capacity, such users would not efficiently process work-
related information and delay making decisions or executing work-related tasks. That is to say,
working professionals’ internet usage during working hours may hinder their intellectual pro-
cessing ability and re-direct them from achieving their primary work tasks, resulting in
reduced reported work performance decrement. Our finding aligns with that of past studies,
which indicate that daily social media use during working hours is a distraction which has a
negative impact on employees’ work performance [62]. The significant association between
social media usage and hesitation is a new addition to the extant literature. It reveals that social
media usage during working house can impact the decision-making ability and work efficiency
of an individual, which, to our knowledge, has not been examined before.
On the contrary, other control variables such as leisure time, gender, education level and
age are directly or indirectly negatively associated with physical issues. The study found that
social media users with longer leisure time, higher education, and female have fewer physical
problems caused by social media usage. Our finding of the association of social media users
with longer leisure time and physical activity demonstrates that the there is a greater likelihood
of engaging against not engaging in all three types of physical activity among internet users
than among those who do not use the internet. Moreover, the results show that, contradictory
to presumptions that spending a long time sitting at the computer may result in a sedentary
lifestyle; weekly hours spent online were not significant predictors of the likelihood of engag-
ing versus not engaging in physical activity. The results suggest a possible relationship between
other Internet use components and physical activity.
Our finding of the association between social media users with higher education and physi-
cal activity suggests that there is a correlation between internet usage for studying and physical
activity on the one hand, and between internet usage and social media on the other, suggesting
that both studying and social media empower individuals to access information which could
help them to develop particular plans for physical activity customized to their needs, percep-
tions, and abilities, whether strenuous or moderate. With regards to physical exercise to
strengthen muscles, the particular digital uses, seeking information and playing games were
identified as those which correlated with this type of physical activity. Looking for information
is another activity which suggests a need for acquisition of knowledge and being competent in
making plans about physical activity [63] independently.
The association between female social media users and physical activity showed that
females had a stronger insight of ease of use, compatibility, relative advantage, and risk when
they use social media, in comparison to men. This findings from the study also have been sup-
ported by some previous studies as well [64, 65]. More recent research, for instance, one by
Lin and Wang [66] aimed to explain the differences in gender in information-sharing behavior
on social networking sites. To accomplish this, a comparative theoretical model of information
sharing between genders was established. Consistent with past research, analysis revealed a
greater importance about that privacy risk, social ties, and commitment for women than men,
because attitude towards information sharing impacts people’s intention to share information
more strongly for women than it does for men. Another recent research [67] made an attempt

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PLOS ONE Social media addiction and emotions—The moderating role of post-COVID timing

to examine gender differences in the use of social media by investigating adolescents aged 13–
18 years in the U.S. and UK. Results showed that adolescent girls spent more time on smart-
phones, social media, texting, and general computer use, compared with boys. However, no
further assessment was conducted to ascertain how much of this time was spent to plan an
activity.
Moreover, older people are less addicted to social media, causing fewer physical disorders.
We observed that females were less addicted to social media than their male counterparts, and
therefore are particularly less vulnerable regarding physical issues caused by social media
addiction. Hence, it can be summarized that generally, males with long working hours spend
more time on social media and become addicted to it and consequently become victims of sev-
eral physical disorders.
As discussed above, there exists is a positive association between social media usage hours
and social media addiction level. Therefore, we can combine the terms like social media addic-
tion to discuss the effects of social media usage hours and its effect on physical issues and the
effect of social media addiction on physical issues. Our study found that several physical prob-
lems related to physical issues increase with the increase of social media addiction levels. Sev-
eral studies support the findings of the present study. For instance, a study in Iran [68]
proposed a possible psychopathology mechanism to elucidate psychological distress among
Iranian young adults during the COVID-19 public health crisis. There was a significant associ-
ation between problematic social media use and psychological distress, both directly and
indirectly.
Moreover, a study [69] conducted in a Tech based company in India also revealed that
employees engaged in too much social media usage were having sleep deprivation; eye strain;
feeling of resentment; lack of depth in the relationships; compromise with the work quality,
and a distraction from work. Another study among social media users observed a number of
physical, psychological and behavioural issues. Frequently seen physical problems included a
strain on eyes, neck pain, back pain, headache, watering of eyes, wrist and shoulder pain,
which were consistent with other studies [70]. However, some exogenous variables were also
considered to see if any external factors influence the association between Internet addiction
and physical issues in this study. The study found that “working hours” only positively corre-
lated with physical issues.
There is a stronger role that social media could play, that could enable us to treat socially-
shaped diseases like obesity, depression, diabetes, heart disease, and other mental illnesses. A
past study [71] outlined how social network thinking is growing, and described several
current uses of social media in healthcare before describing how we could harness the under-
standing of social networks and media for this stronger role of treating socially physical and
psychological diseases though on the platform, obsessive users have a higher prevalence of
social encounters [72]. However, every aspect of daily living has been disrupted by the
COVID-19 pandemic, giving rise to forced isolation and practising social distancing, eco-
nomic difficulty, and fears of being infected by a potentially fatal illness, that could make a per-
son to feel helpless and hopeless [73]. Past research [74] expressed concern about the way and
manner individuals have endured in the past so as to identify strategies which could be espe-
cially successful in controlling health issues and developing resilience during critical times.
Notwithstanding the fact that this current study was systematically designed, it was limited
in a number of ways. Firstly, our results were based on only workers in government and non-
government companies. Secondly, the study covered only workers aged between 25 and 45
years. Due to the fact that the PLS-SEM technique is new and easy to implement, we can
extend the study to assess the influence of the pandemic lockdown on other aspects of life
other than health, people aged outside the age bracket 25–45 years. Thirdly, despite the fact

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PLOS ONE Social media addiction and emotions—The moderating role of post-COVID timing

that research on the PLS-SEM method has gained popularity during in the last ten years, there
are sufficient research opportunities on subjects like mediation or multi-group analysis, which
necessitate further investigation.

Conclusion
The study is potentially significant because it will offer social media users, healthcare workers,
and policymaker’s insights into the adverse effect of addictive social media use. Most impor-
tantly, it will highlight the association of social media addiction with different issues related to
our work, health, education, age, working hours, leisure time and gender, the very important
issues at the centre of life.

Supporting information
S1 File.
(ZIP)

Author Contributions
Conceptualization: Dewan Muhammad Nur –A Yazdani, Tanvir Abir.
Data curation: Tanvir Abir, Kingsley Emwinyore Agho.
Formal analysis: Tanvir Abir, Kingsley Emwinyore Agho, Shasha Wang.
Methodology: Tanvir Abir, Abdullah Al Mamun, Kingsley Emwinyore Agho, Shasha Wang.
Supervision: Noor Raihani Zainol, Kaniz Kakon.
Validation: Kingsley Emwinyore Agho.
Writing – original draft: Dewan Muhammad Nur –A Yazdani, Tanvir Abir, Yang Qing,
Jamee Ahmad.
Writing – review & editing: Dewan Muhammad Nur –A Yazdani, Tanvir Abir, Yang Qing,
Jamee Ahmad, Abdullah Al Mamun, Noor Raihani Zainol, Kaniz Kakon, Shasha Wang.

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